Marti Crow

By Colleen Surridge

Parsons Sun

What the Kansas Legislature is promoting to the public as a 0.7 percent cut in K-12 public school funding through passage of a new bill is misleading at best, according to some officials.

Rep. Marti Crow, Leavenworth, says claims that the Legislature is giving public education a special break, while bigger funding cuts are made to other state agencies, are not true, as the state has not been funding education as it has been ordered to and agreed to in the last several years.

In 1999, a lawsuit regarding school finance was filed against the state of Kansas.

Concerns involved wealth-based disparities between districts in areas like Johnson County compared to rural and economically struggling districts in counties such as Labette.

The court ruled the state’s prior funding formula failed to provide adequate funding for students, and Kansas was ordered to increase funding.

The state produced a three-year plan for an attempt at meeting the requirements of the Supreme Court. In 2006, the litigation was dropped. However, the state did not keep to the plan presented to the Supreme Court.

“In the 2008 session, the Legislature passed, and the governor signed SB 531, which provided an additional $59 for the fourth year of the three-year funding package that was approved by the Supreme Court in the Montoy lawsuit,” Crow said in a letter being circulated to superintendents. “2008-09 is the third year of the school finance package, and the Legislature even reapproved a Keeping Education Promises Trust fund in the 2008 session to secure the funding for public schools for that four-year period. The mega bill does not keep education promises or even make a good-faith effort to do so.”

To detail it, Crow explained:

The original three-year package promised public schools $4,433 per pupil state funding for this school year. The recision bill would have decreased that amount by $66, but the governor vetoed that amount and instead cut the funding for this year by $33, providing $4,400 per pupil this year.

The bill passed last year, SB 531, promised $4,492 for budget per pupil state funding for next school year. The budget bill being voted this week cuts that by $125 per pupil, to $4,367 (a cut voted for by Parsons Rep. Richard Proehl).

That is a 2.7 percent cut from what was promised and secured in the “Keeping Education Promises Trust Fund” last year.

In fact, the state funding in the bill is even less, by $7 per pupil, than was provided during the 2007-08 school year.

“So do not let this issue be spun to convince the public that public schools and Kansas kids are getting what was promised from the legislative branch of government,” Crow stated.

Educators are fast spreading Crow’s statement as requested and are standing in support of the statements and getting the truth out.

Oswego superintendent Terry Karlin said, “Through the process of reducing the already allocated budget for this year by $33, and originally intending to drop it by another $33 in the House version for school appropriations for base state aid per pupil, it never took into consideration we were promised a $59 base state aid increase in 2009-2010.

“We had been planning on that even with our negotiations last year when we established salaries,” Karlin said. “Any reduction now, coupled with declining enrollment is devastating financially.”

Karlin said there seems to be extreme resistance among many legislators to modify, roll back, or eliminate tax decreases, which had a negative impact on state revenues, Karlin said.

During this recession, Karlin said he is not in favor of increasing taxes, but modifying reductions that are up for consideration now would be prudent to the economy.

The impact on schools during inflation is forcing districts to face “gut-wrenching issues including staff and program reductions.”

“They are using the decreased revenue to blatantly ignore the mandate of both the original court of jurisdiction and the supreme court and it drops like a hammer on the backs of kids,” Karlin said. “We were operating at the beginning of this school year like the $59 increase in base state aid per pupil to $4,492 was in the lock box, but somehow the lock box got unlocked.”

Tony White, director of the Kansas National Education Association Uniserv Southeast, said the Legislature’s decision unlevels the playing field further between districts, reducing the ability for all students to have a similar chance at quality education by being able to afford resources and support.

The portion of increased funding districts had received did make a difference as seen in state assessment test results, showing there was payoff for the increased pay to schools.

Where a huge difference was seen in districts in Southeast Kansas with poverty levels of 40 and 50 percent, there will likewise be huge negative impacts by the withdraw of funding.

Now the state is moving backward two years in funding, which will not only affect all the new staff and special programs put in place to acquire those desired results, but there are big concerns about the impact on employees’ salaries, which are going to cause issues with teacher retention again in the state, White said.

The Legislature backing off from its agreement is causing tremendous problems, White said, which he is sure is going to result in yet another lawsuit against the state.

Still, a suit once filed could take two to three years to reach the courts, and by then much damage will have been done.

“They can’t go back on what the Supreme Court signed off on and not expect trouble,” White said.